ART centres to link people living with HIV/AIDS with Aadhar cards

BAREILY: National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) has recently written to Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) centres to link all people living with HIV/ AIDS with Aadhar cards for effective monitoring and to avoid duplication. However, sources said that the move is also aimed at reducing the number of “lost to follow-up” cases in which patients registered at ART centres have not been coming regularly.

In Bareilly, there are 171 such cases and officials assume that a few of them may have migrated and registered at other ART centres in the country.

Though there are 1,700 patients registered with ART centre in Bareilly, but 171 patients till 2015 have not been coming to the centre for follow-ups. The number of “lost to follow-up” cases might be higher than this as officials at ART centre are yet to compile the data for 2016. “The contact number of ‘lost to follow-up’ cases is changed and they have migrated from the addresses provided by them. There are chances that a few of such patients may have contacted another ART centre after their migration. As now it has become mandatory to link Aadhar card with people living with HIV/ AIDS at ART centres, we will be able to detect the duplicity. It will also reduce the number of ‘lost to follow-up’ cases,” said Manoj Verma, data manager at ART centre.

Patients with HIV/ AIDS who do not turn for follow-ups after registration pose risk to their health. “In absence of proper medication, virus starts multiplying in the body of patients with HIV. It makes the immunity of the person weaker which can be dangerous for the life of patient,” said Dr Sanjeev Mishra, medical officer at ART centre.

In Uttar Pradesh, there are 34 ART centres and five financially independent ART centres where only medicines are available. Once Aadhar card is linked with all people living with HIV/ AIDS registered at ART centres, the duplicity can be traced across the country.

Subscribe ETHealthworld Newsletter

A bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V K Rao passed the order while acting on a PIL filed by Delhi-based dermatologist Zaheer Ahmed who complained that lakhs of medicines were being sold on the internet every day without much regulation, posing a huge risk to patients and doctors alike.